College notes

University of South Carolina scholar named editor of Journal of Geography

Dr. Jerry T. Mitchell, a research associate professor in geography and director of the Center of Excellence for Geographic Education at the University of South Carolina, has been named editor of the Journal of Geography.

The journal is the premier scholarly publication for research on geography and education. Mitchell will take the helm of the journal in July 2010 and serve a three-year team. He is the first faculty member of the University of South Carolina to serve as the journal’s editor.

Mitchell, who joined the university’s faculty in 2004, conducts research through the university’s Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute. An expert in environmental hazards, tourism and geographic education, Mitchell focuses his research on the cultural responses to disaster and the use of geospatial technologies to assess vulnerability. He is conducting Hurricane Katrina field work along the Mississippi Coast. His teaching focuses on geography education, specifically the geography of South Carolina.

A graduate of Towson State University in Baltimore, Mitchell earned a bachelor’s degree in history in 1991 and a master’s degree in geography and environmental planning in 1993. He earned his doctorate in geography from the University of South Carolina in 1998.

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University of South Carolina researcher receives $1.2 million grant for North Charleston study

A University of South Carolina researcher will use a four-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to help residents address environmental, public health and revitalization issues in seven disadvantaged North Charleston neighborhoods.

Dr. Sacoby Wilson, a research assistant professor in the Institute for Families in Society and the Arnold School of Public Health, is principal investigator of the project that will identify air, water and soil pollutants and their impact on the neighborhoods.

Once the environmental concerns are identified and mapped, the grant will support efforts by the communities to improve residents’ health and quality of life. That could include shifting traffic patterns, changing zoning and improving pollution controls on large vehicles, he said.

Sacoby is working with the Low-Country Alliance for Model Communities (LAMC), created in 2006 to combat aesthetic, social, economic and environmental issues in the neighborhoods in the city’s northern perimeter, most of which are along the Cooper River.

Other Arnold School researchers on the project include state epidemiologist Dr. Erik Svendsen and Dr. Hongemei Zhang from the department of epidemiology and biostatistics and Dr. Edith Williams with the Institute for Partnerships to Eliminate Health Disparities.